The Fringe of fame

Melbourne's Fringe Festival, which starts next week, has been a launch pad for many well-known acts. We look back at the honour roll.

In 1987, Melbourne's most endearing, crazed and shambolic comedy duo, Lano and Woodley, were part of a trio known as the Found Objects. It wasn't just Frank 'n' Col, but Frank (Woodley) 'n' Col (Lane) 'n' Scott (Casley). In their first and only appearance at the Melbourne Fringe Festival, in 1988, the Found Objects performed a show called Back of the Brain - a half-hour romp about the pleasure and perils of camping - at Le Joke, upstairs at The Last Laugh in Collingwood. The venue seated no more than 100 people and the stage was very small, measuring about two by five metres.

Colin Lane says they were all ridiculously excited about the fact that they had been given the opportunity to escape their lounge rooms and simply show off in public. Inexperienced and nervous, they worried about a swimming routine.

Opening night was hot - literally. Having decided to use a little bar heater with a long cord to add some ambient warmth to the show, in one scene Frank tramped in and threw his beach towel across the stage. Someone in the front row started yelling at them. Ignoring the "heckler", it wasn't until they heard someone ask, "Is that towel supposed to be on fire?" that the trio realised something was awry. "It was a potentially very tragic situation," Lane says, "but luckily someone put the fire out with a jug of beer."

Six Feet Under star Rachel Griffiths was an early performer at Fringe from the mid-1980s. Never one to shy from a political comment, one of her early shows saw her dressed as a Barbie doll and walking around on her toes in a social commentary on women and body image, described by those who saw it as "hilarious".

Surprisingly, those poster boys for the late 1980s and early '90s, the Doug Anthony All Stars, went straight from the Melbourne Comedy Festival to Edinburgh, without a stop at Fringe.

Paul McDermott eventually had his Fringe debut with comedy troupe GUD, performing a show by the same name at last year's festival.

Exhausted from the rigourous demands of performing as the devil in The Witches of Eastwick, at the Princess Theatre in the evenings, McDermott only had half an hour to get to the North Melbourne Town Hall for his midnight show.

"I was shagged - the only way I could get myself in the mood was by having a few bevvies."

Lumbered with a cab driver who didn't know where he was going, driving about in circles, McDermott was more than 90 minutes late for his opening night. No time to do a proper sound check meant the sound too, was a nightmare. The show turned into an interminably swollen, belligerent and self-indulgent tirade.

McDermott says there was pretty much a full house every night, but he was so tired and out of control that he was incapable of giving any kind of good performance. The same fans kept turning up each night and stopped laughing only to stare at him in disbelief. One night, McDermott started throwing chairs at them in frustration. "My whole heart was just going black."

Looking back now, he says the wounds are soothed and he can almost recall it fondly - it now feels like a car accident where no one was injured.

Provocative director Barrie Kosky directed in 1988 Don Giovanni, with the Treason of Images Theatre company, at the Union Theatre, Melbourne University. A reviewer at the time described it as "banal and glib", "mere sleaze", but with good lighting.

With a mechanic for a father in a car enthusiast family, Jean Kittson tapped into both her own and her family's obsession and wrote her first two shows, Auto-Mania and Blue Vinyl, in the late 1980s for Fringe. Although moderate successes, her third, Bedlam, in 1988, would be a watershed.

Directed by David Swann, Bedlam was critically acclaimed and awarded first prize for best show in the Fringe that year. Devoted to another subject close to Kittson's heart - bed - and all the things you do in it, she performed the entire show from a bed, dressed in her pyjamas.

The venue was the 150-seat U2 space at the now defunct Universal Theatre in Fitzroy.

Kittson cites this show as the turning point in her career. "It was a really fertile, exciting and creative time - a great opportunity to take risks and explore new skills," she says.

Her opening night was packed with friends and family, but great word of mouth combined with a couple of fantastic reviews ensured that her season was a sell out - more than breaking even at the box office.

"One of the best things about the Fringe was, and continues to be, its celebration of madness," Kittson says. "Not only were the audiences really sympathetic and tolerant, but you could be as 'out there' as you liked - in the best possible way."

Stand-up comic Rachel Berger made one foray into Fringe in 1991 as part of a women's season at the Carlton Courthouse. Sharing the bill with Rachel Griffiths (whose mum made her costume and came to watch the show every night), Berger says she remembers none of the performers having producers or agents on the scene and that the environment was completely nourishing and supportive.

The show, Life's no Glass Slipper, was an exploration of the goddess within - a narrative based on Greek mythology's underworld. Her first straight monologue, she says the audience gave her a chance to try something new, but it wasn't until she added a few jokes that the show took off.

"The whole thing resonated with me because it allowed me to explore new territory - I became empowered as a female stand-up comic and thankfully, I did so without strapping on a dick or making jokes about tampons. In terms of the show, it wasn't a huge success but what I learnt from the process was just fantastic."

Television comedians Lynda Gibson and Denise Scott were joined by Lynne McGrainger and Sally Upton in what became the first drag kings show, before the term had been coined, in the Natural Normans - women dressed as men, doing the bloke thing. The show, in the late 1980s, returned for repeat performances in subsequent years.

As a member of the successful Working Dog film and television production team, and on-screen member of The Panel, Santo Cilauro has trouble remembering his first Fringe show. But mention the 1989 theatre show The Heartbreak Kid, however, and it all falls into place for Cilauro.

"I think it was the play before the TV series (Heartbreak High) and it was directed by Nick Giannopoulos (who also appeared in the play). I forget my character's name, but he was a 16-year-old kid. Considering I was about 27 at the time, I think I was slightly mis-cast," he laughs. "I did wear my cap around backwards, that's all I remember."

He remembers little about the opening night, except being initially impressed with the red carpet at the theatre. "I remember thinking 'Wow, red carpet', until I realised the Athenaeum actually had red carpet. It looked special, I thought it was all specially dressed up. But I remember being taken by the physical beauty of the Athenaeum... until then I think we'd done all our shows at the Last Laugh."

They performed to quite large audiences of about 300, although Cilauro suspects most would have been family members.

WHAT, WHERE, HOW

The Melbourne Fringe Festival starts on Friday and runs for 17 days to October 12.

Most events are around the North Melbourne Town Hall Arts Centre on the corner of Queensberry and Errol streets, but other venues include Federation Square, Bar Open, Fitzroy, and Pony in the city.

Tickets can be purchased online at www.melbourne fringe.com.au, by phone on 8412 8777, or in person from the Fringe W Class tram on St Pauls' Court Corner, Federation Square at the venue door, or at the Arts House's box office, Tuesday to Sunday, one hour before the show. Tickets are up to $20 and Tight Arse Tuesdays tickets are $10.